A microfluidic chip has a function of simultaneously executing various experiment conditions by discharging fluid through a microfluidic channel. Specifically, the microfluidic channel is created using a substrate (or a chip material) of plastic, glass, silicon or the like, and after moving a fluid (e.g., a liquid sample) through the channel, for example, separation of a sample, mixture, synthesis and quantitative analysis of cells, observation of cell proliferation and the like may be performed in a chamber of the microfluidic chip. The microfluidic chip is also referred to as a “lab-on-a-chip” because experiments conducted in a laboratory of the prior art were carried out in a small chip.
The microfluidic chip may create an effect of saving cost and time in the pharmaceutical field, biological engineering field, medical field, biomedical field, food sector, environmental field, fine chemistry field and the like, and in addition, it may enhance accuracy, efficiency and reliability. For example, since doses of expensive reagents used for culture, proliferation and differentiation of cells can be reduced remarkably by using the microfluidic chip compared to existing methods, cost can be saved considerably. Furthermore, in conducting an analysis on a biological sample such as a protein, a DNA, a cell, a neuron, an enzyme, an antibody or the like, the amount of samples used in the analysis is much smaller than that of the conventional method, and images can be analyzed using the samples, and thus the amount of samples used or consumed for analysis and the time required for analyzing the samples can be reduced.
In relation to this, FIG. 1 shows an exploded view of a portion of an exemplary microfluidic chip of the prior art.
As shown in the figure, the exemplary microfluidic chip 100 of the prior art may include a plurality of first channels 110 and a plurality of second channels 120. In the exemplary microfluidic chip 100, a fluid flowing through the plurality of first channels 110 is mixed with a fluid flowing through the plurality of second channels 120, and the channels may be formed in different layers to facilitate flow and mixture of the fluids.
To this end, the microfluidic chip of the prior art is manufactured by bonding at least two substrates (or layers) on which the channels are formed respectively. However, according to such a manufacturing method, since a plurality of substrates should be bonded to each other after the channels are formed on the substrates, there is a problem of alignment between the substrates. That is, considerable time and cost are required in the process of bonding the substrates when the microfluidic chip is manufactured. Furthermore, time and cost are also required to manufacture the two layers of substrates (i.e., two substrates) (e.g., through an injection molding process or the like). That is, the microfluidic chip of the prior art has a problem in the manufacturing process from the aspect of time and cost and also has a problem of degrading precision of the chip.
Accordingly, a microfluidic chip, a manufacturing method thereof and an image analysis device using the same are required to solve these problems.